BlackBerry Podcasts now available!

Like many people, I really enjoy listening to podcasts during my downtime, and I’ve often used my BlackBerry® smartphone to listen or view them. So I’m pleased to be able to tell everyone that BlackBerry® Podcasts is now available!

BlackBerry Podcasts gives users access to video and audio content, plus it makes the downloading process incredibly simple. One of my favorite things about this app is that it is completely mobile. I can search the catalog and grab the podcasts I want with just one click – no PC required.

Access a growing catalog of free audio and video feeds

The catalog has some great feeds and is growing every day. Get podcast favorites like The Onion or feeds from your favorite networks and shows.

It’s easy to find what you’re looking for

Go to ‘Explore Podcasts’ and scroll through the feature carousel to view top downloads, search via categories like news, arts, business, TV & film and more. You can even conduct a key word search if there’s something specific you want to find. What’s great about this feature is that as you browse the BlackBerry Podcasts catalog, your device will highlight which ones you already subscribe to. Once subscribed, podcasts are delivered automatically along with a notification to your BlackBerry smartphone so you can access them effortlessly.

Other reasons to love this new app

Apart from access to entertainment and the mobilized experience that allows me to enjoy nearly “anywhere, anytime” access (like the time I was stuck waiting over an hour and a half for an oil change – thank you, podcasts, for keeping me entertained!), there are a lot of reasons to love this service:

Download episodes to be enjoyed offline or during downtime: Your favorite episodes are downloaded to your media card, you do not need to be within coverage to view your feeds

Leverages push technology: You can benefit from push notification, and of course, it’s more battery-friendly

Access BlackBerry “how to” videos: You can learn how to use your device directly from your device, covering a variety of common questions like how to use BlackBerry® Media Sync, how to manage Bluetooth® or how to mobile browse

Opt to get the BlackBerry Connection®newsletter as a video podcast: Catch up on what’s new and popular with BlackBerry smartphones!

Control your download preferences

BlackBerry Podcasts was conceived with users in mind. In designing this service, it was important to consider that not all users have unlimited data packages and that the size of media cards vary. Therefore, the following download preferences are included in the ‘Options’ pull down menu:

Choose delivery over WiFi or OTA or both – Manage your data charges by selecting download preference. Opt to download via WiFi only (the default), or WiFi and mobile network.

Choose the number of episodes to retain – Manage your storage by choosing whether you only want to keep non-played episodes, the last 1-5 or 10 episodes, or choose to keep them all.

Choose what and when to download – Choose to download either the most recent or all available episodes, or choose only to download episodes when you are charging your device.

BlackBerry Podcasts is available in US and Canada on BlackBerry App World™ and comes preloaded on all devices running BlackBerry 6. It is supported on the BlackBerry® Bold™ and BlackBerry® Storm™ series of smartphone devices; a microSD card is required for use with the BlackBerry® Pearl™, BlackBerry® Curve™ and BlackBerry® Tour™ series of smartphone devices. There’s more information available at www.blackberry.com/podcasts.

Give it a try and let us know what your favorite podcasts are!

About Vikram K.

Product Manager Vikram joined Research In Motion (RIM) in 2006 after working in the Web, browser and computer-networking worlds as a product manager and a software developer. He spends most of his time nowadays working on RIM’s multimedia products. He is a huge sports fan and loves being able to check on his cricket and football scores anywhere, anytime thanks to his BlackBerry smartphone.

PD: you have to change “BlackBerry Podcasts now available!” to “BlackBerry Podcasts now available in USA and Canada (only)!”

randyburgja

US and Canada only!!!!! LAMEOOOOO!!!!!

http://twitter.com/MarkTeetor Mark Teetor

Every Podcast I tried said that it was to big and I had to use WiFi. 1.)I am at work where I don't have a WiFi access point and 2.) MY PHONE DOESN'T HAVE WIFI ! This is the dumbest app ever. I had it on my phone for a total of 5 minutes before I deleted it. Good Job BlackBerry!

chrome ghost

i know rim is focusing on OS 6…..butnext 2 rim phones should be with a horizontal slider and one with just a touch screen.get those hardware specs up with everyone else, dont do exclusive carrier releases and rim may not drop off the face of the earth like the kin and palm

iRob

Has RIM forgotted there are users in other countries? Announce a good app, load it on US & Canada App World”, then force the rest of us to go and get an Iphone. FFS, again

Paul

Why is it not available in the Netherlands?

Randy

I was hoping to be able to add in podcasts not on the list. Please, please, please add in Coverville.com under music. It's a great show, lots of legally licensed music, and the production quality is high.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QG7JGS3D7M44766DRRNL4NE25Q Steve St. Acrash

US & Canada ONLY?? Come On, RIM!! What a disappointment……..you really are forcing people to go to the competition…you know that, don't you???

All my email accounts are Gmail, so Android would mean push email for me still……BBM, I would miss, but…..I'm sure I will find something else. Especially given the buggy releases of BBM recently, shouldn't be too difficult.

danielc

The app seems to be pretty useless. I can't even get it to download a pre-approved podcast from the list and I have both 3G and wifi on. Podtrapper works way better and is so much faster…and the app has been out for years!

Membacher

You can add other casts. In the menu there is an “add podcast” option. It lets you paste in an rss feed address adding it to you podcasts.

http://twitter.com/BobcatShooter Pat

Tried to download multiple times and it crashes my bold running OS 4.6 every time it starts to install. Resulted in “reload software 552” errors twice. I gave up.

CM

It works fine for me in the UK (Curve 8520). All I had to do was disable the mobile network and just leave the wifi on. Then start Blackberry App World and it won't know that you are not in the US (well, it could but it doesn't), so downloading Blackberry Podcasts worked fine.

after wasting many hours trying to install it from different sites on the PC and on the phone and and from app world… I discovered that the app is only supported in USA. Annoying that it does not support other coutries, but if only they could have called it ‘BB Podcasts USA’ then it would spare a lot of people a lot of frustration and disappointment

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